BRANTFORD – The Tshepo Institute for the Study of Contemporary Africa will celebrate Black History Month with a lecture on the Black African presence and the Canadian national identity. The lecture takes place February 4 at 5:30 p.m. in room OD 107 in the Odeon Building, 50 Market Street at Laurier Brantford.

Joseph Mensah, a professor and associate director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples at York University will present “The Black African Presence and the Nation-Immigration Dialectic in Canada.”

“The lecture will examine the interplay between the social construction of Blacks and the national identity formation of Canada,” said Robert Ame, Laurier associate professor in Human Rights and Criminology, and director of the Tshepo Institute. “This is an excellent way to kick-off Black History Month celebrations on campus, and to examine the role of immigration, specifically from Africa, on the Canadian identity.”

Mensah was born in Ghana, where he completed his undergraduate studies. He received his master’s degree in Human Geography from Wilfrid Laurier University, and his PhD from the University of Alberta. He is the author of numerous books, including Black Canadians: History, Experiences, Social Conditions (2002), and editor of Understanding Reforms in Africa: The Tale of Seven Nations (2006) and Neoliberalism and Globalization in Africa: Contestations from the Embattled Continent (2008).

The lecture is being presented in partnership with Laurier’s Global Engagement Centre, as part of International Development Week, February 4 to 8.

For more information about the lecture or the Tshepo Institute, please click here or contact Dr. Robert Ame at rame@wlu.ca or 519-756-8228 ext. 5848.